


it is all in your head until you love him

by chartreuser



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6558025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keep: your eyes on the ice. Hold his love for you tighter and try to remember. Blink hard. Blink fast. Live harder so you won't forget; love him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. growing the hope

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably going to be a drabble series of sorts, I could update with more in the future and I probably will tbh! 
> 
> icosahedonist asked: zimbits prompt: whispered secrets
> 
> if you liked it, maybe reblog it on [tumblr](http://holsterr.tumblr.com/post/142817939595/zimbits-prompt-whispered-secrets)?

Sometimes, Jack thinks: maybe this isn’t real. Like the only thing he’d ever have to do is reach out and it’ll be pills that he’s reaching for instead of a person. It’s confusing in the way that most things are when you’re riled up with anxiety and wanting to go, wanting to get drunk or lock yourself in, wanting to shut down the world even while you’re burning. There’s always been something distant about reality and the way Jack handles it, how he’s always waiting for a slip-up, a missed pass, a fall on the ice hard enough to break him. Sometimes he wishes that it _would_ be that way, but it also seems a little too inconvenient.

 

“What are you thinking,” Bitty says. His hand is holding onto Jack—and it feels like a lifeline to him, something that he could clench tighter and ask for a reprieve, maybe for a reason to back out. But it’s not fair to either of them. It’s not fair to hold someone else’s love and ask them to hold your life in return.

 

“Tell me,” Bitty says, and he leans in to press a kiss to Jack’s lips, something chaste, undemanding. He could feel his fingers shaking; it’s not Bitty’s, he’s certain. Sometimes he doesn’t know how to stop it when it gets there. He wants the desperation to boil over, to roll to a stop. He thinks: Bitty doesn’t deserve this, he never did. It’s just funny how you can never give the world to the ones who should have it, who loves with both their hands wide open and expects nothing back.

 

Jack breathes out, shaky. “I don’t know how to,” he says, and it’s true. Jack’s never been good with words. He’s good with a hockey stick in his hands, at taking checks, shaking off the weight of someone else’s anger.

 

There’s a kindness to Bitty when he smiles at him, something small but not tentative, never hesitant, not anymore. “You could try. You could tell me later. I’ll be here.”

 

Jack sees it, sometimes. The way that Bitty holds him until Jack relearns how to stop trembling. He thinks: maybe everything would be easier if he was around, before. But it’s a dangerous thought process to go back on. Stick your head deep into the past and there’s a possibility that you’ll never get out. It’s cold and trying and difficult to wrap his mind around, this old familiarity of hating yourself.

 

So Jack wants to repackage all of that. The anxiety won’t go away but the trembling dies down. You could curl up on the bathroom floor trying to throw up the pills you didn’t take but it’s an experience that means that you’re still alive. You could think that you’re not good for someone whose kindness is large enough for the whole wide world and never want to share—but it’s another thing to do them right. It’s another thing to love them back as hard as you can.

 

He brushes his thumb against Bitty’s mouth. Sometimes all you need is courage.

 

Jack says, “I never feel like I’m enough. I never feel like there’s time before the world crashes down on me. That they’ll eat me up and spit me back out knowing how much it hurts. But sometimes I wake up and I’d smell your pies, baking in the kitchen—and it’s soothing. It keeps me still enough that my hands won’t shake when I take my Xanax. Perhaps they’d still be shaking but I wouldn’t know. I might not be enough but you always are. I could wake up and still be in the same place all those years ago. But you’re here and I’m dependent on you and maybe it’s less harmful than swallowing all these pills I’ve kept at the bottom of everything, waiting for the day that it goes bad.”

 

Jack says, “I guess it’s not the future that scares me as much as it’s the past. I want to go back and wallow in misery but that’s not conducive. I want to breathe in the whole world and hold it in my fingers and maybe that’s something good. Maybe it’s not. But I come back from the ice with two broken wrists, with you asleep on the couch and I think—I might be good for something. I _want_ to be good for you. This might not make much sense because you love everyone so quickly and easily and I want to earn that. I want to earn the knowledge that you’re sitting in our apartment waiting for me to come home, that you’re baking for your clients or watching tape or recording your videos.”

 

Jack says, “I’m thinking that I could try. I’m thinking that if I try hard enough that you’ll stay. I’m thinking that it could feel like the world’s on fire but you never are. Bitty—you make me want to try.”

 

Jack says, “I love you.”

 

Bitty smiles at him—it’s wistful, large, and those might be tears in his eyes—and leans their foreheads together. Jack can feel his breath like this. Bitty feels real. It snaps him into focus. The world is quiet and here is the both of them, sharing the same air. Bring yourself forward and kiss him with everything that he deserves to have.

 

Bitty says, “I love you too, Jack.”

 


	2. a larger space for sincerity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> icosahedonist asked: or, a different zimbits prompt: jack singing to bitty for a change

They’re on the bed, with Bitty fiddling with Jack’s phone when he rolls over and says, “You’re such an old man.”

Jack smiles. “What are you complaining about _this_ time?”

Bitty gives him an unimpressed look, and plays whatever song he’s looking at. Jack recognises it immediately; it’s _Georgia On My Mind._

“Oh,” Jack says. “Anything wrong with it?” He swings a leg on top of Bitty’s, propping himself up so he’s just a hair’s breath away from kissing him. “Out of all the songs you could have picked?”

Bitty flushes, and Jack kisses down the length of his throat, humming. He’s squirming a bit, swatting at Jack’s shoulder, but they both know it’s half-hearted and in jest, so Jack continues to bite shallowly at his skin, the melody sounding tinnily from where Bitty’s still grasping his phone.

“No peace I find,” Jack sings, watching the faint rise of Bitty’s chest, trailing a finger down his side before looking back at him, grinning faintly. “Just an old sweet song.”

Bitty’s eyes are trained on him, now, a slow smile spreading across his face as he pulls Jack back up. It’d be a kiss if either of them leaned in.

“Keeps Georgia on my mind,” Jack finishes, before Bitty kisses him down, down, down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://jaackbitty.tumblr.com)!


	3. breathe()

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bet there’ll be pies when you come home.”

George says, “Just bear with it. It’s just a few hours,” and Jack goes.

She’s on his arm but it doesn’t feel that way. Like his mind is shutting itself in, and really, it’s not that unfamiliar of a sensation; Jack’s been breathing in his anger for longer than he knew how to keep it out. The heat doesn’t help, though. It’s July and the evening warmth is doing nothing for the tension edging his way up his spine, his shoulders.

_I don’t want to be here_ , Jack thinks. He’d rather be pressing trembling fingers to his temples, ice melting in between his fingers, the skin numbing all over. It’s unhealthy. Jack’s never known balance, it’s either the top of the world or hurting shallowly in a hospital room. One pill after the next.

Someone jokes about a girlfriend that Jack’s never going to have. He smiles at him with all the sincerity he has left, wraps his arm around George’s waist as politely as he can manage.

“What’s Bitty baking tonight,” she asks. “Bet there’ll be pies when you come home.”

He feels the sweat making their way down his spine. Jack’s not wearing clothes meant for the perspiration. He feels trapped in them; he’s an athlete first and nothing second. Might have argued _boyfriend_ a few months ago but it doesn’t feel like that either, a few years have passed but Jack’s still afraid. Sometimes he thinks he’ll always be.

But George is trying to help. She’s feeling the clench of his fists and wanting for a distraction. _It’ll never come_ , Jack wants to say. _We can try but there’s one day it’ll come back down onto your head. It’s another disgrace, another fall. You’ll be waiting to come back but it’s all up in the air. Sometimes it’s too late. You’re waiting for the right time that never comes. You’re waiting for an anniversary that’ll never happen. They’re waiting for the day that you won’t be here again._

Jack says, “Bitty’s always baking.” It comes out tight. It comes out shaky. He tries again, with the voice he was meant to speak in. For the public, for the press, for the Jack Zimmermann he was born in. “He’s probably making one for the new nutritionist, too.”

“He’s very persistent.”

_Yes_ , Jack thinks. _But for how much longer?_

“Well,” Jack shrugs. “He has to be.”

 

 

Jack keeps his fingers out of sight until he’s in the cab. Presses them against his pants and imagines Bitty’s hands underneath his own. One in his hair. One cupping the back of his neck.

Nights like this he can’t do it as often. Can’t bring up his smile when Jack finishes all of the pie and grumbles about having to work out more often. It’s always a frown, red eyes, halfway to shouting. _Sorry_ , Jack thinks. _You were never a dirty secret I meant to keep_.

 

At home, Bitty’s standing in the kitchen counter. He stares at his hands the way that Jack looks at his own. He thinks— _this isn’t right_. You shouldn’t be hiding someone in the dark when he’s all you have. He’s the only person you want them to know. You should be wanting to hold him in public and turn your face to the camera.  They’ll turn to you and you’ll smile. It’ll be all teeth, full to the brim with joy. None of the anxiety. Nothing of the hurt.

Bitty looks up. “You’re home.” He’s been crying. Jack reaches out to wipe the tears from his eyes. It seems to be all he’s doing lately.

Jack says, “I love you. Let’s come out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe give it a reblog on [tumblr](http://jaackbitty.tumblr.com/post/142857480630/tiptoe39-jack-surviving-some-kind-of-event)?


End file.
